Meyer Brent H, Prescott Brian, Sheng Xuguang Simon
Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 1000 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta, GA 30309, United States of America.
Department of Economics, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. Washington, DC 20016, United States of America.
Int J Forecast. 2022 Apr-Jun;38(2):529-544. doi: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2021.02.009. Epub 2021 Mar 5.
We document and evaluate how businesses are reacting to the COVID-19 crisis through August 2020. First, on net, firms see the shock (thus far) largely as a demand rather than supply shock. A greater share of firms report significant or severe disruptions to sales activity than to supply chains. We compare these measures of disruption to their expected changes in selling prices and find that, even for firms that report supply chain disruptions, they expect to lower near-term selling prices on average. We also show that firms are engaging in wage cuts and expect to trim wages further before the end of 2020. These cuts stem from firms that have been disproportionally negatively impacted by the pandemic. Second, firms (like professional forecasters) have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by lowering their one-year-ahead inflation expectations. These responses stand in stark contrast to that of household inflation expectations (as measured by the University of Michigan or the New York Fed). Indeed, firms' one-year-ahead inflation expectations fell precipitously (to a series low) following the onset of the pandemic, while household measures of inflation expectations jumped markedly. Third, despite the dramatic decline in firms' near-term inflation expectations, their longer-run inflation expectations have remained relatively stable.
我们记录并评估了企业在2020年8月之前对新冠疫情危机的应对情况。首先,总体而言,企业(到目前为止)很大程度上将此次冲击视为需求冲击而非供应冲击。报告销售活动受到重大或严重干扰的企业比例高于报告供应链受到干扰的企业比例。我们将这些干扰指标与其预期的销售价格变化进行比较,发现即使是那些报告供应链受到干扰的企业,它们预计平均会降低近期销售价格。我们还表明,企业正在削减工资,并预计在2020年底前进一步削减工资。这些削减源于受疫情负面影响过大的企业。其次,企业(如专业预测机构)通过降低其未来一年的通胀预期来应对新冠疫情。这些反应与家庭通胀预期(由密歇根大学或纽约联储衡量)形成鲜明对比。事实上,疫情爆发后,企业未来一年的通胀预期急剧下降(降至该系列的低点),而家庭通胀预期指标则大幅跃升。第三,尽管企业近期通胀预期大幅下降,但其长期通胀预期仍相对稳定。